Grafted is a horror film directed by Sasha Rainbow. Lee Murray, Rainbow and Mia Maramara wrote its screenplay. Joyena Sun stars as Wei, a young Chinese girl haunted by her family's past.
Wei gets admitted to Auckland University and moves to New Zealand with her deeply anglicized cousin. Troubled by her insecurities, she soon conducts some questionable experiments to fit into society's beauty standards.
Grafted was released on Shrudder on January 24 after appearing in various prestigious film festivals. It stars an ensemble cast including Eden Hart, Jess Hong, Jared Turner, and several other actors in prominent roles.
Professor Paul was saved by a neighbor in Grafted
Sasha Rainbow makes her directorial debut with a film that takes a grotesque take on socially perpetuated beauty standards. At the center of Grafted is Wei, a socially awkward Chinese teenager who had moved to New Zealand for college. Wei was conscious of her facial birthmark, and most people around her did nothing to uplift her self-esteem.
Then came Professor Paul, a sleazy researcher who sleeps with his student, Eve. He seemingly gave her a space to grow by making her his lab assistant. For Wei, this was an opportunity to continue her late father's groundbreaking research on skin grafting, a procedure that could potentially cure her deformity.
However, Paul had other intentions. He had been famous for making a major scientific breakthrough at 17 and had been chasing that glory since. He wanted to steal Wei's father's research and publish it as his own.
To take her research back from him, she pretended to be Eve, by grafting her face on herself and went to Paul's house. She took a vial of the substance that helps in skin grafting. Later, Paul came to Eve's house and questioned her about the vial. Wei as Eve, told him that she put it in the fridge, but when he opened the fridge, he found Eve's head and other body parts.
Wei gave him no time to panic, stabbing his neck with a needle to make him go unconscious. Then she tied him to a chair and started torturing him by injecting a mysterious substance, which made his facial skin grow and close up.
Before Wei could finish her work, a neighbor walked in and witnessed everything. She ran out and started screaming for help, forcing her to run away. At the end of Grafted, Paul is shown in a critical condition.
What happened to Angela in Grafted?
Wei's cousin Angela, played by Jess Hong was born and raised in New Zealand and was completely oblivious to her Chinese roots. She was Wei's classmate but they both lived in two separate worlds. Angela was popular and was friends with other popular girls, whereas Wei was shy, awkward and extremely conscious about the mark on her face.
Angela quite evidently expressed her dislike for Wei and wanted her out of her life. Eve, one of Angela's friends, strategically took a photograph of Paul and Wei, to make it look like they were having an affair. This made Angela furious, and in her anger, she destroyed an altar that Wei had made in memory of her father.
Eve also confronted Wei in her car and dropped her off in the middle of nowhere. After walking for miles, when Wei reached home, she found her father's alter destroyed. The cousins got into a physical fight, that ended in Wei stabbing Angela in the eye.
Wei fuses with a homeless man in Grafted
After killing Angela, Wei ran away, but the police were close behind. She went to the underground railway station and sought help from a homeless man with a facial deformity, who had been kind to her. He hid her under his blanket to avoid being seen. Immediately after, the vial that she was carrying broke and spread to both their skin, causing a deadly reaction.
In Grafted's dark and heartbreaking ending, Wei's body is fused with that of the homeless man. They become a single body with four eyes and with unusual placements of mouths, fingers and teeth.
Wei's desire to become conventionally beautiful eventually turned her into something that people were scared of. Her worst nightmare became a reality.
Stay tuned for more news and updates about Grafted and other films and shows on Shudder as the year unfolds.